Becoming different people?
Image accessed from 18 October 2020.
People definitely change in lots of ways. We age, we learn things, we change our opinions. Is there anything about us that doesn鈥檛 ever change?
If you replace every plank in a fence, is it still the same fence? If you replace every defining aspect of yourself, then would you still be the same person? Maybe not. I find this a really troubling thought. If it鈥檚 an inevitable truth that we become different people, then we鈥檙e essentially dying all the time without even realising it.
It also has a big effect on relationships with others. It would mean some of the people I think I know aren鈥檛 actually the people I know. They are different people now, I have never met them. I don鈥檛 have the history with them that I think I do, those memories are with someone else. Come to think of it, if I鈥檓 different, those memories would be from someone else too.
Even though people do change in lots of ways. I believe that people retain the same fundamental identity. Looking back on my life, there are ways I鈥檝e developed as a person, but I still think I鈥檓 the same person. I don鈥檛 know what exactly it is, but there鈥檚 something about who I am that hasn鈥檛 changed. I鈥檓 still me. Something deep about me is the same. Some core part of myself that I haven鈥檛 changed.
I would say that the changes in our lives are more like painting a fence rather than removing the fence and building a new one. We may be significantly different, what we identify with may change in really big ways; but we鈥檙e still us.